hidden from the tourists you going to meet some real criminal insiders although they may not be the usual news makers you see on t.v. . it was the easy. top stories clashes across northern ireland head for a six week decision to fly the union flag over city hall but just.

the french president orders tougher security at home following the country's intervention in mali. eleven. the global head. after a key internet freedom advocate commits suicide his family blames the u.s. criminal justice system for pushing him over the edge. and yes we can't. shut down guantanamo bay. with more than one hundred sixty people held. without charge or trial. after it opened. with a look back at the past seven days top stories and the latest developments this is the weekly on. at least twenty nine police officers were injured on saturday in

belfast as clashes in northern ireland reach into a six week the unrest was triggered by belfast city council's decision to fly the union flag above city hall for only eighteen days a year the latest clashes broke out after about a thousand unionists marching on city hall. in a catholic area police were forced to use water cannons and plastic bullets to disperse the angry mob. has been one of the protests at the scene. breaking out once again. becoming. helped by the fact that many feel inflammatory political language has helped to whip up the tensions here on the straight. recreational rioting that's what some people are calling it. you can see the face at

the back just say the back roads of police responding with the worst economies on the surface and these protests have been about the flag but the scale and intensity of the decision that really this is about much much more than just bad luck easton's the director of the east belfast mission creep is working with young protesters to try to calm the tensions some kids are doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister motives in terms of control terms of par in terms of ego some are doing it because it's sexier than the playstation you know young girls are doing it because of young girls even with young children we've seen on the streets who i don't think a fully realized what their actions can result in what they're just right there and somewhere striving aloft and yet there's nothing funny about it what are the protesters here asking for just want our flag back up on water and pays to get off their back ses peter robinson least you're not silly not them he was the one that

had to start. the day forty thousand they flipped for us to come out on the street to protest against the announce a nice sentiment back save maybe take all the flak he's called was rubbish and skull mannering out you know but when he wanted also it on the streets for his election we can make for do you think the protestors would predict that any kind of pull from like when it comes to this shit from the flag of it's the flag turned out said. we know we're not going to get a backup plan or an election because it's the law of majority rule. any unionist for this now holds to try to reengage politically. but we're told much more will need to be done and they'll be quick fixes in. i think there's a different things need to happen economic. investment political investment

community investment. in these communities to try and resolve the draft of issues that are a blight here it's a father's been able hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business. these riots have been highly localized the damage has already been far reaching. this is a new generation pulling back onto the streets of belfast it's a far cry from the darker days of northern ireland's complex that doesn't make it any less troubling. spoke to jason wall she's a journalist for the christian science monitor who says the rest is down to changing demographics. the protests. despite the appearance of some groups such

as the ulster peoples form no one is entirely sure exactly what it is that the protesters want northern ireland in general and belfast in particular have traditionally being protestant unionist loyalist or if you like to call it areas and the recent census results should northern ireland's no longer has a unionist one it's more a sort of fifty fifty situation i mean what can see the whole do is got itself into a real rock and a hard place isn't it if they overturn the decision it's going to look like more brule take it over potentially cause a flare up on the other side this stuff going to get over this account of they certainly can't undo the decision. first or but it's deep highly unlikely that irish nationalists councillors would vote to raise the flag and second of all even if they could be convinced to do so in the name of public order i think it would look very bad for the council to constitute a block done fears of violence so what's your prognosis which way is this going to go you know over the coming months is it going to come that was are going to go from bad to worse it's very difficult to say. it's not if not actually do we get

drawn into the into the wrong going to get much much worse. obviously also a suspect device so i just wonder if you have viable small explosive was true in light of belfast today no it's not yet clear who planted. these are not good signs . a rebel spokesman in mali says french aircraft bombing targets in two central towns of the country at least eleven civilians including three children have been killed in airstrikes and fighting since the french intervention was made public on friday the first french casualty in mali came on saturday when the pilot of a helicopter shot down by islamist rebels was killed the first task of troops in mali was to help the government regain control of the heath central town of qana the neighbors of the west african states are also sending troops to help battle militants fonso and said the military operation in mali it will continue for as long as necessary but france based independent journalist robert says that the country's foreign policy contradicts itself. i think as long as the french people

aren't too bothered by the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite has a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to interfering other people's countries but if you if the minute it starts to get nasty i think you'll find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion these sort of islamic extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find these people have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of that intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going to find it's a very dangerous place to intervene that mali has requested help and they get it instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told our no we can't interfere to tell any particular regime were

neutral. it to do even if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions of what they do. also this week two french soldiers died in somalia during a failed mission to. the raid began hours after french troops began the intervention to get rid of the is mr rebel groups in the in control of the northern part of the country there are currently nine french people held hostage across northern africa. a new round of diplomatic efforts to solve the ongoing syrian crisis has failed to reach a breakthrough the un's international mediator lakhdar brahimi reiterated this week there could be no military solution to the conflict and moscow again voiced support for a political transition adding that president a sense of departure cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the war meanwhile rebels seized

a large airbase in the north while regime forces bombarded opposition fighters out of the suburbs of the capital damascus earlier western experts claim the government might be hiding up to fifty tons of raw uranium enough to make five nuclear bombs and after recent fears the regime not may not control its massive stockpiles of chemical weapons there's now concern uranium may fall into the hands of islamic extremists which some say that's just one side of the story. there's a lot of noise about it there was a bombing in two thousand and seven the israeli jets bombed the site in syria claiming that it is a nuclear site there was no indication yes the i.a.e.a. visited the site the i.a.e.a. said that there were traces of your a norm of depleted uranium but they did not confirm that there was any quantity or at least you know this huge quantity that is being publicized i mean they're saying fifty tons of uranium this is this is i don't know where they come up with the

number. of yes the i did some research and it appears that they came up with the number because they they feel they are coming up with the story that this site that was there that was bombed in two thousand and seven would actually require fifty tons that doesn't mean that the syrians actually have fifty tons and that doesn't mean that the site is actually for a nuclear program the syrian central government was able to control more than past six months there is an advance of the syrian army and the syrian official police and they are controlling most of the country there are only some areas in the countryside where rebel fighters are in some areas in the countryside where the syrian army withdrew from these areas because they thought that these areas were not important strategically but overall this is an central government under the leadership of president assad controls most of the syrian territory obviously it's difficult because there are many fighters infiltrating from outside syria there are many a lot of money being infiltrated being pumped into syria to these rebel groups

by neighboring country especially by by turkey by qatar by other european and by the united states there is a sponsorship of these these terror groups. you're watching the weekly here and on t.v. with the twenty four hours a day coming up eleven years indefinite detention without charge or trial to take an in-depth look at the infamous guantanamo bay facility which remains open despite barack obama's long running pledge to shut it down. also still to come to find his way to supreme court suspends the inauguration of hugo chavez amid intensifying speculation over the leader's health and the future prospects of his country those stories in detail and just ahead. if you.

do meet. him at least be told language you. will use programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about seventy yard p. interviews intriguing stories for you you. see in troy all te arabic to find out more visit our big don't all teeth dot com. world including. science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the huge you're covered.

weekly continues here in r t one of the world's most notorious detention facilities marked its eleventh grim anniversary this week with more than one hundred sixty people still being held there without charge or trial the closure of guantanamo bay is a promise barack obama has so far failed to keep what small calls to stop indefinite detention of largely died down in the u.s. will even torture is gaining acceptability is going to explain. president obama's call to look forward not backward has resulted in attempts to sweep the past under the rug including some of his own promises earlier i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that colonel morris davis was a chief prosecutor at guantanamo under george w. bush and he later became a vocal critic of the practices there and strongly supported president obama's pledge to shut down the prison he says the perception of guantanamo in the u.s. has come a long way since two thousand and eight when he was

a burning and highly controversial issue with a nation demanding action he gets a free pass on i mean the public largely could care less the mainstream media now here in the us. you know is more interested in car dash and then they are and what happens at guantanamo. so who's going to challenge it if we're looking for the biggest threat to america right now she's right there her name is kim carr daschle and. america has moved on and so has its perception of torture polls by the american red cross show the majority of americans now find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago portugal's largely condemned in the us. hollywood has arguably contributed to that evolution of public opinion in the movie zero dark thirty day or trade the information that led to the capture

and killing of osama bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture and in fact that is simply not true actual information was obtained through reporter based interrogation techniques the government classified everything related to its torture practices which allows politicians pundits and filmmakers the freedom to perpetuate all kinds of myths although a slew of washington insiders including the senate intelligence committee point out how torture has proved to be ineffective but in america it's often fiction not facts that make history this is more important than reality this is the movies where americans learn their history and today the history in the making is the drone strikes this amounts to the administration executing people without due process often in absolute secrecy in foreign lands with a remote control but will obama's drones generate as much of a backlash as one tunnel did for george w.

bush and we've now got have a generation that only knows the post nine eleven hero. where things like guantanamo and the. warrantless wiretapping that's all they've ever known you know for a decade now. an accepted part of life unfortunately judging by how the guantanamo controversy evolved here's what may transpire with regard to drones here urgency of the issue will subside in the us because there will be no american troops dying there will be no public movement to oppose the program there may even be a movie or two touting the technological capabilities of drones and once the controversy dies down it will become the new normal and america will move on in washington i'm going to check out. former guantanamo prisoners have shared their painful memories with antti saying more attention has to be drawn to the fact the prison is still operating despite the condemnation. i don't know why i was released

and others are not ok i mean like specially when you know that people are not involved in anything and want to know more people who have been cleared ok at the time i don't know what i was really so i don't know if i was cleared or not really i don't remember but today there are people who have been cleared and they're not out of guantanamo and i think but i feel uncomfortable and you feel that's guilt lingering in yourself that's why am i out there still and the memory of one thousand of course the very clearly because of what happened in. the mistreatment doesn't go away easily i think it's. it could've i think in those create the. deep wound that will last a long years so and the memories are very clear and when we talk about them found these things do come back the people might have been forgotten and i'm still exists . you know it's very difficult to get the media interested in through their story

the way they speak about just the still existing if you're like is important because every individual that is locked up in one town counts on their family. and the messages that come from a sense to the world is a very disturbing and very serious message that have to be has to be. has to be like you know opposed and spoken against. the people of beijing have been given strict stay indoors warnings on whites to whiskey to go outside their party dot com. and thirteen year old boys travel to thousand kilometers across. but the weight of a sadie's without raising any suspicion or only underage boys on the website right now. the people of venezuela still in suspense over the health of their leader hugo chavez who's recovering from cancer surgery in cuba earlier this week

tens of thousands held a rally at a symbolic and old aeration ceremony as chavez's official swearing in date was postponed indefinitely by the country's supreme court the basket from asia times online believes that with the protracted absence of the charismatic leader there is a severe power struggle underway. chevy's war is not a monolithic saying like would dare to say the communist party in china that least four or five different factions fighting for power and this is one of the problems we have an unsteady situation in terms of chavez house because there will be an internal struggle for power inside there is more in that the same time we're going to have more possibility just of foreign interference trying to rule that you know as louvered this process and i mean specially our friends in washington all the news he will see an opening well maybe this is the beginning of the end of just look let's get it out. meanwhile despite his uncertain future prospects venezuela

has been increasingly attracting those in search of a better life. has been finding out with no end in sight to the financial crisis many are finding refuge in countries with an alternative economic model or some venezuela represents hope and new opportunities the bolivarian republic may be a surprising choice after all it's been ranked as one of the most corrupt nations in the hemisphere whose murder rate exceeds that of iraq still the world bank says venezuela draws the largest number of immigrants after argentina with one million flocking here in two thousand and ten alone the most. get weaker rosa is one of them after decades of struggling in the u.s. she decided to start anew in venezuela. and that's come to you completely alone you go that trying to find a new way but you really learn nobody helps you there nobody in caracas the helping

hand came from the government a cheap loan to kickstart a small business and subsidies that enabled her to purchase the school that's why rosa and others like her see the country as a place where. you can move more freely you have moved to. do you have more growth and increased spending on social projects to help create those opportunities having the state on your side in terms of the benefits is a huge thing because you don't have to worry about your basic necessities everyone has the right to universal free health care quality health care education at all levels the government provide subsidies to start up small businesses medium sized businesses that do the same in terms of. if they're coming from a country where the economic crisis is so bad they've been cutting all those benefits but it begins to look like a paradise that may certainly seem to be the case for those on the bottom president hugo chavez helped bring the poverty rate down from fifty percent when he took office to roughly thirty one percent and the u.n.

says venezuela has the lowest level of inequality in latin america. it's one child as diehard supporters among the poor but what about the rich critics say chavez is alienating the wealthy many of whom tried out in droves to vote for his opponent in october closely contended election twenty first century socialism hasn't helped us it has hurt us to a child his opponents blame his so-called socialist experiment for problems like limited foreign investment they say that it's driving businessmen and entrepreneurs out of the country. by daniel year g.'s himself a young businessman disagrees after spending twelve years in barcelona he decided to return to venezuela not just for the economic benefits he says but for the chance to partake in a different sort of future order there are two very different political forces in this country one monster moved towards capitalism the other is on the path of socialism in the october election the people of venezuela voted to make the country

greener fairer to create more opportunities and in this regard many venezuelans like myself have decided to return home and so they do showing that for some gambling in venezuela system may be worth the risk you see catherine of r.t. venezuela the family of internet freedom activist aaron swartz has blamed the u.s. criminal justice system for his death the twenty six year old co-founder of social news website reddit hanged himself in his new york apartment on friday swartz face thirteen felony charges connected with hacking the network of mit university that could lead to him spending up to thirty five years in prison and a representative of the pirate group from the but in parliament says that just isn't justified. i definitely don't think this plan is the same as mine was justified it is completely ridiculous people are being charged with fifty thousand dollars fines for just are not into music on the internet was was putting fires on the internet that should have been on the internet. a long time ago and actually

j.-star. there where the fire came from and said they wanted to put the fire on the internet anyway and aaron swartz just did a perfectly good job doing it and he actually took a lot of effort from them which would offend their efforts i think the system brought in this case whenever it comes to internet freedom whenever it comes to copyright infringement then other senators other people in the house of representatives in the united states on the same side there is no differences. there they are five same side as hollywood does they are actually fighting for hollywood and making the laws for them. sometimes it's ridiculous what they what they are thinking what would be a good law should always think what they are but the laws actually haven't effect on society and that's why it's carrying a very heavy legacy that will be difficult to to fill a footstep but there are a lot of people that fight for the same goals that were tried to go into what's

what he was fighting for and i think the political movement that is fighting for free internet is the strongest now and with get stronger in the next months and years and there is no no risk that this very heavy loss for the internet community will bring a stop to the political movement. you're watching weekly here on r.t. still to come on the program this hour convert banking. find out more about the secret meetings held in battle global economic decisions being made the details in a couple of minutes we. classes rival palestinian groups hamas and fattah try to heal the rift between them we look at how israel's occupation policies may have brought the factions closer together that's after the break. join me on a journey to the heart of the problem to a place is hidden from the tourists you're going to meet some real crime insiders

although they may not be the usual news makers you see on t.v. . here. i. miss you free credit patience three hours four chargers three. three. three. priests download free broadcast live video for your media

project for free media r t v dot com. we continues here in. russian opposition activists have marched in moscow to protest against a law banning u.s. citizens from adopting russian children our correspondent was at the ready. but the protesters are demanding that the e.u. the authorities abolish a lot of arson recently which bans americans from adopting russian children now this button is part of the russian lawmakers response to the money to be hacked passed recently in the united states which gives the green light for sanctioning russian officials suspected there in the state of violating human rights of the reason why russian lawmakers chose to balance from adopting russian children is due to the meaty issues of lobby usually sometimes even deaths of russian kids after

they were adopted and brought to the united states in fact the whole issue of the option has been quite a problem between russia and the united states for several years now and officials in moscow say it's not only the cases of abuse themselves but also the lack of a proper legal reaction from american off gordie's including the lack of heavy jail sentences which could have prevented these cases from happening again so authorities say that banning americans from adopting russian kids is actually aimed at protecting them and it's fair to say that they do have quite a large number of supporters in society in russia just recently why the russian girl in her blog online wrote a personal letter to president putin we signed the bill in the end asking him to change his mind to abolish this law she explained it by saying that in many cases the orphans which are being adopted by americans and many foreigners were americans in this case.